1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk array device that comprises a mixture of disk drives of a plurality of types with different interfaces, and, more particularly, to a method for managing the disk drives of different types in this disk array device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Disk drives used in disk array devices have a variety of interfaces and characteristics. For example, a disk drive, which reads and writes data by means of a fiber channel interface (hereinafter referred to as a ‘fiber channel disk drive’ or an ‘FC disk drive’), is afforded dual paths in order to be accessible by a plurality of controllers, and possesses characteristics such as a fast read/write speed.
As a different type of disk drive, a disk drive that reads and writes data by means of a serial interface (referred to hereinafter as a ‘serial disk drive’ or ‘SATA disk drive’) is a serial-port disk drive. Further, although the read/write speed is comparatively slow, this type of disk drive is characterized by its relatively low cost and large capacity. In recent years, technologies for employing SATA disk drives by affording same dual paths in order to improve fault tolerance have been proposed (see U.S. Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003/135577/specification). According to this technology, each SATA disk drive is connected to a fiber channel via a converter that converts the serial interface into a fiber-channel interface, and a dual port device that provides the SATA disk drive with dual paths.